My recent one month holiday/trip to ekiti, (our Jerusalem) left so many questions answered for future administrations when the issue of road maintenance rears its head.
Without the Julius Berger etc of the construction world, the administration of Gov Oyebanji has managed to ensure through a 24 hour surveillance team that attention is given to portions of Ekiti roads before they reach a failed status, kudos to the entire team.
The strategy as I heard is “monitor, assess, prioritize resources while not abandoning any assessed portion, set response timeline by the maintenance team’.
I believe that the era of colossal road contracts with contractor completion/delay clause linked to weather has been overcome by this simple “local intelligence” attributed to a listening and responsive governor.
Still in the transport sector, I got a firsthand tour of a government storage facility where erstwhile thought vehicles beyond repair had been rescued and restored to pristine shape. The brands of rescued and restored vehicles varied from Hilux, to SUV ford/Prado and other luxurious brands that will definitely compliment the government fleet. I counted over 80 vehicles at this particular facility. The cost saving approach is commendable as, those vehicles were destined for a give away price at the auction table….
Virtually all MDA was affected by this rescue and restore mission of the Gov Oyebanji administration. On the modest side of figures, the rescue and restore mission saved ekiti state something in the range of 4Billion Naira on the immediate if these vehicles were to have been purchased afresh.
The answered questions for future administrations include utilizing existing government agencies/resources and where there is need for direct labor of our indigenes thereby putting money in their pockets too.
The state has in place a fully assembled asphalt producing plant, Gov Oyebanji deployed to his people’s need, there are granite crushing plants that readily provide the much needed base mixture for palative and long term road repairs.
